New clerk hired for town

Stefani Bowden has been hired as Coulee Dam’s new town clerk/treasurer.

Mayor Greg Wilder said that Bowden will begin her new duties, Friday, Jan. 17.

Bowden has been assistant city clerk in Wilbur for the past nine years, is a high school graduate of Wilbur and attended both Spokane Falls Community College and Central Washington University.

She will lead a team of two others in the town offices.

Also hired, as utility clerk, a full time position, is Michelle Bredstrand, who served as manager of Bank of America’s local branch for a number of years. She has already begun work.

The town is currently in the process of hiring a part-time “records clerk,” for which Wilder said last Thursday that the town had about 80 applicants. He is currently going through the interview process for the position, which will work a schedule 60 percent of full time.

Bowden will begin, Wilder explained to council members last Wednesday, at step two in a new five-step salary schedule approved by the town council Wednesday. She’ll earn $4,167 a month and would move, after a satisfactory review in six months, to step three at $4,375 a month.

The utility position wage ranges from $17.50 to $21.42 in the scale. The part-time records clerk’s hourly rate will range between $14.25 and $17.31 an hour.

Wilder said last week that even with the addition of a part-time records clerk, the three salaries at the top of the scale would be from $4,000 to $7,000 a year less than the town had been spending for two positions at town hall.